March 10, 2009

Destroying Twitter, one spam link at a time

Today I saw a compelling tweet for a free camera bag contest:

I clicked through, scrolled down, and I realize that my acquaintance Hybernaut was spamming me. Here's how I had to enter the contest:

This is the second time I've seen a Twitter link pyramid scheme in action. I first lost my innocence when my reliable Twitter source of fun quotes suddenly posted a spammy non-quote tweet. We exchanged angry comments, but apparently, out of the account's thousand followers, I was the only one to complain.

These message strike me emotionally, by breaking down the central value premise I find in Twitter. I believe when people post messages, it's their thoughts in words, and not a corporation using them as a mouthpiece. If I'm following AmazonMP3, of course I know a business is posting the content. But when people I've met in real life post a commercial link without context, the metaphor shear is so abrupt and jarring, I know how the recipients of the first email spam must have felt.

Imagine if most or all the people you follow on Twitter frequently entered contests this way. How could you tell when it was really them posting? Does it matter, as long as the content behind the link is interesting? It matters to me, but maybe I'm one in a thousand. What do you think?

Comments

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There's at least two in a thousand. Soon as I get a spam twit from someone I follow, I promptly unfollow.

Granted, it hasn't happened to me very often as of yet. My use and appreciation of Twitter is completely unserious though, almost exclusively for jokes and the occasional brief yet bilious rant. Most of the people I follow (and the few who follow me) would likely react to twittled spam in a similarly choleric fashion.

Is Twitter doomed to become the equivalent of a tedious radio call-in contest? ("The 532nd tweet wins a free bucket of lard!") Probably not, but the signal to noise ratio is worsening exponentially.

Spamming is very common in blogging, and I hate it. I own a blog and I always encounter a spamming comments. I use to delete it from the post in the first attempt but in the second time,third or more than that, I banned the URL of the commenter.